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  SLAMMER

  NEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  TABATHA VARGO

  Slammer

  Copyright © 2015 by Tabatha Vargo

  All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manor whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations

  embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events or real people are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, and incidents are products

  of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events

  or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Slammer/ Tabatha Vargo/RD Douglas

  Cover Art by Mae I Design/Regina Wamba

  Book design by Inkstain Interior Book Designing

  PRINT

  ISBN-13: 978-1516967261

  ISBN-10: 1516967267

  EBOOK

  ISBN-10:0986117323

  ISBN-13:978-0-9861173-2-9

  “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too.

  They live inside us, and sometimes,

  they win.”

  STEPHEN KING

  SLAMMER

  PROLOGUE

  A SLITHER OF sunlight peeked in through the curtains hanging from the single window in the room, blinding me when I opened my crust-filled eyes. Pain radiated through my brain, splintering across my synapses. Groaning from the severe headache, I slammed my eyes closed and prayed that I wouldn’t throw up all over myself.

  My head ached with the beat of my heart, a sledgehammer landing against my forehead with each pump of my blood. I rubbed at my sore temples in hopes of making the pain lessen, but there was only the mind-numbing ache.

  The stale remnants of beer lathered my dry tongue like flavored cotton. Smacking my lips together, I swallowed the sandpaper that glazed my tight throat. Cravings for water rolled through my stomach as I prayed for moisture in my mouth and a pain-free mind.

  Again, I opened my eyes, my blurry vision landing on the ripped curtain flowing from the window like a silky waterfall. It swayed in a breeze I didn’t feel, directing my attention to the ceiling fan above me. I stared as the blades cut through the musty air, making dust particles dance in the slice of light from outside.

  In the distance, the sound of a clock teased the pain hammering through my brain, making my dark lashes flutter in agony.

  Tick-tock, tick-tock.

  It was almost too much to handle.

  I moved to sit up, but fire shot down my spine, making me gasp. The pain was hot and blazed through my body like fire-tipped daggers. Trying to cry out was futile. Only broken, hushed noises pushed past my cracked lips. I licked them, thick, dried blood tingeing my taste buds and filling my mouth with the metallic flavor of life.

  That was when the smell hit me—the acrid scent of death. It was unlike anything I’d ever smelled before—like the end of someone—like dark cries in the night and rotting flesh. Topping it off was the overwhelming scent of blood. It hovered over me, suffocating me. Someone had bled out near me. There had to be more somewhere, and it was considerably more than the tiny bit that seeped from my chapped lips.

  I tried to remember the night before, but there was nothing but a few flashes of color—tiny moments of memory that included blonde hair and red, luscious lips—Sarah. I’d been with her. She’d wrapped her sweet lips around my cock and showed me a night I would never forget, but that was all I remembered.

  I wasn’t sure where I was or how I’d gotten there. Actually, any memories I had of the last few days of my life were gone, except for a few flashes every now and again. Any others were swiped clean from my mind and replaced with nothingness—the equivalent of a TV with no signal—a gray mass of fuzziness.

  Wherever I was, I knew I needed to get the hell out of there and get home. My mom would be waiting for me. I wasn’t a baby, but even at nineteen, I still checked in. Being an only child meant my mother was very protective of me.

  I was a respectful young man. After living with an abusive husband for most of her adult life, my mom taught me well. Since my father’s death, it had only been us, and I wasn’t about to have her sitting home worried for longer than she needed to be.

  Rolling onto my side proved to be harder than it should’ve been, but I managed. I gasped at the pain and stiffness in my body. I was on a hardwood floor, and there was no telling how long I’d been lying there. If the pain in my young body was any kind of indication, I’d say days.

  I rolled over completely and paused. Breath rushed from my lungs, leaving them deflated and still. Cold, lifeless eyes stared back at me—eyes of death—eyes of the end.

  It was an unfamiliar guy with light hair and blue eyes. However, a cloudy fog had formed over his eyes, leaving them looking gray instead. His mouth was gaped open, revealing a row of perfect white teeth. It was as if he’d screamed his final breath—screams that I could almost remember hearing. And then my eyes moved down, landing on the bloody stump where his neck used to be.

  There was no body. Just his head and those eyes that cut through me accusingly.

  I jumped back, not even feeling the pain I knew was there in my scramble to get away from the decapitated head. I’d never seen a dead person before, other than on TV. It was gruesome, and I was sure I’d never forget it for the rest of my life… however long that might be.

  My back met the wall, and I cracked my head against the crumbling sheetrock. From my new vantage point, I could see the room as a whole. I looked around in fear for my own life. Whoever had beheaded the man before me could still be there. He could be after me next.

  The room came into focus—the bare, tobacco-stained walls, the lone couch in the center of the room, and the table in front of the couch covered with empty beer cans and ripped clothes—I couldn’t remember any of it.

  It was then I saw them—the body parts—mangled legs and arms. They were littered around the room like broken, bloodied doll parts. My eyes clashed with a set of long, blonde locks of hair drenched with blood. Her mouth was open and her dead eyes were staring accusingly at me.

  Sarah.

  My Sarah.

  The girl I’d been dating for the last few months of my life.

  I’d just told her I loved her, and we’d had sex for the first time a few months before. She was my first and I was hers. I knew once I had her that I was going to marry her. The way she opened up for me and trusted me with the most innocent parts of herself… I realized in that moment she was undeniably special. Yet there she was—dead—decapitated like the stranger beside her and screaming out into the morbid solitude around me.

  I was in shock. I knew that because as badly as I wanted to go to her, I couldn’t move. It was too gruesome of a sight. Blood splatter covered the space, painting the room a rusty red, as if some abstract artist had just finished painting a masterpiece.

  It was a slaughter. There was so much death.

  Who could’ve done such a thing? And where was that person now?

  Why had I survived?

  There were so many unanswered questions.

  Looking down at my blood-soaked shirt, I lifted it to check for cuts. There was nothing. It was then that I took notice of my hands. The rusted color of dried blood was smeared all over them. It was caked in my cuticles, dried streaks running up my arms. Some had crusted in my arm hair, making it stick on end. It was all over me… and it wasn’t mine. It was theirs.

  There were only the dead people… and me. Their bodies were mutilated in ways that made my stomach instantly sour. I closed my eyes against the scene, and images filled my mind. There were pictures of screaming and running. They were beg
ging to live—Sarah, begging me to live—staring at me with fear while crying. It was all so real.

  I blinked away the images. I couldn’t remember the events that led me to the moment I was in, but something told me I was responsible. A twinge of doubt and guilt tickled the back of my conscious. I wasn’t sure why or how, but I’d killed Sarah and the stranger. I’d ripped them limb from limb and beheaded them like a madman.

  Panic thickened in my gut and I turned to the side, puking all over the dirty, wooden floor. The sour smell of beer and things I couldn’t remember eating teased my nostrils, making my stomach empty even more.

  I was a monster. I was sick and demented, and I didn’t even know it. My reality had somehow shifted, and I was in another universe—one where I wasn’t the young, carefree boy I’d always been, but a dangerous, bloodthirsty freak.

  I needed to get out of the room. Away from everything before me. I couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t look at the disaster I’d caused. I scrambled to my feet. The blood rushed from my head, making me feel dizzy.

  I had two options: I could run… or I could go to the police station and confess to murders that I didn’t remember committing.

  Both options were taken away from me by the loud banging on the door.

  “Christopher Jacobs!” a man with a deep voice called through the door. “FBI!”

  After that proclamation, the door came crashing in, wood splintering and flying into the space around me. The room filled with the authorities, their accusing eyes filling with disgust as they took in the scene around us. They trained their guns at my head, but everything became muffled and began to blur.

  A single beeping noise filled my ears, nagging my beating head and forcing me to swallow and blink. The room spun and the men moved in slow motion toward me as I held my hands up. I was tossed to the ground, a knee in my back and my face pressed into the bloody floor beneath me, as I was cuffed. Suddenly, the beeping sound disappeared and I could hear clearly.

  “Christopher Jacobs, you’re under arrest for murder.”

  My life was over. I was as good as dead.

  CHAPTER 1

  LYLA EVANS

  “FUCK, BABY, I can smell that sweet pussy all the way over here.”

  My eyes flashed his way, and I was met with a hairy face and rotting teeth. Quickly, I looked away.

  “I’d kill every motherfucker in this place to feel those pouty lips on my dick,” another inmate called out.

  I looked straight ahead instead of into the eyes of the men who shouted out to me.

  The words of the warden and the commanding officer at my interview moved through my mind.

  Don’t show fear. If you show fear, they’ll eat you alive.

  “I bet that shit tastes like strawberry pie. I could eat strawberry pie all day, baby.”

  You have to be assertive. Show them you won’t take their mental abuse.

  “Hey, Strawberry Shortcake, can I have a taste? Fuck, just looking at you makes me hungry.”

  Their words echoed all around me. The ones who weren’t calling out derogatory things were laughing. They were having a good time at my expense. I was nothing but a joke to them.

  Be very private about who you are when you’re with the inmates. Don’t talk about your personal life with other staff in front of the inmates. Even simple things, said over time, will paint a very detailed picture. Inmates are always listening. Always.

  “Come here and let me tongue fuck your slippery clam, pretty girl.”

  Never turn your back on an inmate; don’t let them walk behind you on the way to the blood pressure machine; don’t turn your back as you dispose of sharps, etc.

  “Look over here, sweet thing. Look at all this cock I got for you.”

  Make sure at least one custody officer is with you at all times: in the infirmary, treatment area, escorting, etc.

  If my daddy knew the kind of job I was working, he’d roll over in his grave three times and pop open a beer to soothe his nerves. Not the nurse part, he always knew I wanted to go into nursing, but where I was a nurse was the problem.

  The thought of his little girl working in a maximum-security prison full of hardened criminals would kill him if he weren’t already dead. But he was dead. Had been for three years, and I was left to fend for myself.

  God rest his sweet soul and bless him.

  It was my first day and my nerves were definitely getting the best of me. Of course, it didn’t help that I was locked inside. Watching the bars close behind me every time I moved further into the prison to the infirmary was enough to send me straight into an anxiety attack. It was suffocating in a way. I couldn’t imagine being an inmate and not being able to leave.

  When another round of bars closed behind me with a loud bang, I took a deep breath.

  I was fresh out of nursing school. I’d done my clinicals for a family practice close to home, taking the temps of children and the blood pressure of the elderly. I was so thrilled to graduate and become a registered nurse. Looking back, I remember how excited I was about the possibility of working the labor and delivery floor at St. Francis Hospital. Bringing new life into the world and holding a newborn life in my hands was my ideal dream.

  I was clueless.

  Jobs were few and far between. With bills that needed to be paid and student loans that were soon to be knocking on my checkbook, I couldn’t afford to be picky. Instead, I was walking halls full of men who had taken lives—ones with no remorse for their crimes.

  I’d accepted a job in the infirmary at Fulton Rhodes Penitentiary, one of the most dangerous prisons on the East Coast.

  “Hey, Red, how’s about taking a ride on this hard cock?”

  It got worse the more we walked.

  “Don’t look them in the eye,” Officer Douglas said from the side of his mouth. Louder, and in a much harsher tone, he snarled to an inmate as we passed by, “Knock it off, Reid. Put your pecker back in your pants or I’m taking your ass to solitary.”

  I walked next to him toward the infirmary. Cells lined the halls around me, and the men inside them continued to call out filthy words that made my stomach turn. I knew when I took the job how hard it was going to be, but being spoken to that way wasn’t something I was accustomed to.

  Closing my eyes, I swallowed hard before taking a deep breath and schooling my expression. I couldn’t let these men eat me alive on the first day. My daddy didn’t raise me to be a quitter. I’d always been tough as nails, but losing my dad had softened me a bit. I was raw and hurt—afraid of everything that moved—and it wasn’t like me. I’d always been able to handle being roughed up a little, but I was still sickened by the foul things that flew from the mouths of murderers.

  Finally, we left the block and the final set of bars closed behind us. When we stepped into the infirmary, I was able to breathe again. The space was empty except for the beds that lined the crisp, white walls. The sharp scent of antiseptic stung my nostrils, but after the pungent odor of the men on the block, the hospital smell was welcomed. I’d never been more thankful to be inside of a germfree environment.

  “Here we are,” Officer Douglas said. “Dr. Giles will be with you shortly.”

  He backed out of the room with an awkward smile. The bars opened with the loud clicking I knew I needed to get used to, and then closed behind him with a final bang.

  I was alone. The room around me haunted me with its bare walls and grey and white shadows of sin. Alone—in a maximum-security prison with murders, rapist, and God only knew what else just outside the room.

  Great.

  I picked up a stethoscope from the counter, the cold steel burning my fingertips. When I set it down, the noise echoed throughout the room, sending chills down my spine. I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to working in such a place.

  There were many beds. Some were hidden behind the closed separator curtains, making me nervous that I wasn’t alone. That there might be a sleeping inmate behind one of those curtains. Maybe he woul
d wake up at any minute to rape and murder me.

  It could happen.

  I jumped when a buzzer sounded and a door I hadn’t noticed in the room opened. A man, who I could only assume was Dr. Giles, entered the room. His jacket was as white as the walls around us, his eyes just as cold, but his smile was warm. I guessed that would have to be enough.

  “You must be Lyla. I’m so glad you’re here. We’ve been shorthanded for far too long.”

  Suddenly, the room felt warmer and his icy eyes melted into a friendly brown.

  I nodded and smiled. “I’m glad to be here.” It was a lie. I wasn’t glad—I was scared. I felt dirty and cold, but still, a job was a job.

  I spent the next hour following Dr. Giles around the infirmary and getting to know the space and where everything was located. He pointed out the machinery, explaining that a few of the machines were older and had certain tweaks. Apparently, when it came to hardened inmates, top-of-the-line equipment wasn’t all that important.

  “The good news is that you’ll never get bored here.” He smiled. “There’s something new every day.”

  That sounded promising. I didn’t bother to ask what some of the “new” things would be. My imagination was already going nuts with the possibilities.

  “Your main responsibility until you get comfortable here will be intake screenings. You’ll spend most of your time doing those. When a new inmate comes in, you’ll do a full work up. You’ll then fill out a four-page document on each inmate’s physical and mental health status.”

  He flittered around the infirmary, speaking quickly, making it nearly impossible to remember everything.

  “Those documents are important, so don’t skim on them. If we’re going to be safe here, we need to understand exactly who it is we’re working with. When an inmate enters our facility, it’s important to understand all their health issues—be it mental or physical. Trust me. It could save your life.”